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COPYKIGHT DEPOSIT. 



A STUDY OF 
BROWNING'S SAUL 



A STUDY OF 
BROWNING'S SAUL 



•/by 



CORA MARTIN MacDONALD, A.M. 

FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY 
OF WYOMING, LECTURER ON ENGLISH LITERATURE 







CHICAGO NEW YORK TORONTO 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

LONDON AND EDINBURGH 
MCMII 



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Copyright, 1902, by 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 

November 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies ftaceived 

JAN 9 1903 

Copyright Entry 
CLASS (X. XXc. No. 
COPY B. 






R. K. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 
CHICAGO 



cn 






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*'See the Christ Stand!" 



SAUL 

I 

Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, 

ere thou speak, 
Kiss my cheek, wish me well!" Then I wished it, 

and did kiss his cheek. 
And he, "Since the King, O my friend, for thy 

countenance sent, 
Neither drunken nor eaten have we ; nor until from 

his tent 
Thou return with the joyful assurance the King 

liveth yet. 
Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the 

water be wet. 
For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of 

three days. 
Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer 

nor of praise. 
To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their 

strife, 
And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks 

back upon life. 

II 

"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child, 

with his dew 
On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living 

and blue 



lo Saul 

Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no 

wild heat 
Were now raging to torture the desert!" 

Ill 

Then I, as was meet, 
Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on 

my feet, 
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent 

was unlooped; 
I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I 

stooped; 
Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all 

withered and gone. 
That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my 

way on 
Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once 

more I prayed. 
And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not 

afraid 
But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!'* And no 

voice replied. 
At the first I saw naught but the blackness; but soon 

I descried 
A something more black than the blackness — the. 

vast, the upright 
Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow 

into sight 



Saul 1 1 

Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all. 
Then a sunbeam, that burst thro* the tent-roof, 
^showed Saul. 

IV 

He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms 

stretched out wide 
On the great cross-support in the center, that goes 

to each side; 
He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught 

in his pangs 
And waiting his change, the king-serpent all heavily 

hangs, 
Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance 

come 
With the springtime — so agonized Saul, drear and 

stark, blind and dumb. 

V 

Then I tuned my harp, — took off the lihes we twine 

round its chords 
Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noon-tide — 

those sunbeams hke swords! 
And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, 

one after one. 
So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be 

done. 



1 2 Saul 

They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, 

they have fed 
Where the long grasses stifle the water within the 

stream's bed; 
And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star 

follows star 
Into eve and the blue far above us, — so blue and so 

far! 

VI 

— Then the tune for which quails on the cornland 

will each leave his mate 
To fly after the player; then, what makes the crick- 
ets elate 
Till for boldness they fight one another; and then, 

what has weight 
To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand 

house — 
There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird 

and half mouse! 
God made all the creatures and gave them our love 

and our fear, 
To give sign, we and they are his children, one 

family here. 

VII 

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their 

wine-song, when hand 
Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, 

and great hearts expand 



Satd 13 

And grow one in the sense of this world's life. — 

And then, the last song 
When the dead man is praised on his journey — 

*'Bear, bear him along 
With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are 

balm-seeds not here 
To console us? The land has none left such as he 

on the bier. 
Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!"— And 

then, the glad chaunt 
Of the marriage,— first go the young maidens, next, 

she whom we vaunt 
As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.— And 

then, the great march 
Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress 

an arch 
Naught can break; who shall harm them, our 

friends? — Then, the chorus intoned 
As the Levites go up to the altar in glory 

enthroned. 
But I stopped here: for here in the darkness Saul 

groaned. 

VIII 

And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and 

listened apart; 
And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered: and 

sparkles 'gan dart 



1 4 Saul 

From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once 

with a start, 
All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous 

at heart. 
So the head: but the body still moved not, still hung 

there erect. 
And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it 

unchecked, 
As I sang, — 

IX 

"Oh, our manhood's prime vigor ! No spirit feels waste, 

Not a muscle is stopped in its playing, nor sinew un- 
braced. 

Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock 
up to rock, 

The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the 
cool silver shock 

Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of 
the bear, 

And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his 
lair. 

And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over v/ith gold 
dust divine. 

And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full 
draught of wine, 

And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bul- 
rushes tell 

That the water was wont to go warbling so softly 
and well. 



Saul 1 5 

\ How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to 
) employ 

I All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy ' 
HdSt thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose 

sword thou didst guard 
When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for 

glorious reward? 
Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held 

up as men sung 
The low song of the nearly departed, and hear her 

faint tongue 
Joining in while it could to the witness, 'Let one 

more attest, 
I have lived, seen God's hand thro' a lifetime, and 

all was for best'? 
Then they sung thro' their tears in strong triumph, 

not much, but the rest. 
' And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the 

working whence grew 
Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the 

spirit strained true: 
And the friends of thy boyhood — that boyhood of 

wonder and hope, 
Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the 

eye's scope, — 
Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a people is 

thine; 
And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one 

head combine! 



I 6 Saul 

On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and 

rage (like the throe 
That, a-work in the rock, helps its labor and lets the 

gold go), 
High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame 

crowning them, — all 
Brought to blaze on the head of one creature — King 

Saul!" 

X 

And lo, with that leap of my spirit, — heart, hand, 

harp, and voice. 
Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding 

rejoice 
Saul's fame in the light it was made for — as when, 

dare I say. 
The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains 

through its array. 
And upsoareththe cherubim-chariot — ''Saul!" cried 

I, and stopped. 
And waited the thing that should follow. Then 

Saul, who hung propped 
By the tent's cross-support in the center, was struck 

by his name. 
Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes 

right to the aim. 
And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that 

held (he alone. 
While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on 

a broad bust of stone 



Saul 



17 



A year's snow bound about for a breastplate, 

leaves grasp of the sheet? 
Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down 

to his feet, 
And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, 

your mountain of old. 
With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages 

untold — 
Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each 

furrow and scar 
Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest — all 

hail, there they are! 
— Now again to be softened with verdure, again 

hold the nest 
Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the 

green on his crest 
For their food in the ardors of summer. One long 

shudder thrilled 
All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and 

was stilled 
At the King's self left standing before me, released 

and aware. 
What was gone, what remained? All to traverse, 

'twixt hope and despair; 
Death was past, life not come: so he waited. 

Awhile his right hand 
Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant 

forthwith to remand 



1 8 Saul 

To their place what new objects should enter: 'twas 

Saul as before. 
I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was 

hurt any more 
Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch 

from the shore. 
At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean — a sun's slow 

decline 
Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap 

and entwine 
Base with base to knit strength more intensely: so, 

arm folded arm 
O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided. 

XI 

What spell or what charm, 
(For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next 

should I urge 
To sustain him where song had restored him? — Song 

filled to the verge 
His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that 

it yields 
Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty: 

beyond, on what fields. 
Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten 

the eye 
And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the 

cup they put by? 



Saul 1 9 

He saith, "It is good;" still he drinks not: he lets 

me praise Hfe, 
Gives assent, yet would die for his own part. 

XII 

Then fancies grew rife 
Which had come long ago on the pasture, when 

round me the sheep 
Fed in silence — above, the one eagle wheeled slow 

as in sleep; 
And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that 

might lie 
'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt 

the hill and the sky: 
And I laughed — '* Since my days are ordained to be 

passed with my flocks. 
Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains 

and the rocks. 
Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image 

the show 
Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly 

shall know! 
Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the 

courage that gains. 
And the prudence that keeps what men strive for." 

And now these old trains 
Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, 

once more the string 
Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus — 



20 Saul 



XIII 

''Yea, my King,'* 
I began — **thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts 

that spring 
From the mere mortal life held in common by man 

and by brute: 
In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul 

it bears fruit. 
Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree, — how its 

stem trembled first 
Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then 

safely outburst 
The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when 

these, too, in turn 
Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect: 

yet more was to learn. 
E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. 

Our dates shall we slight. 
When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or 

care for the plight 
Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced 

them? Not so! stem and branch 
Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the 

palm-wine shall staunch 
Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee 

such wine. 
Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit 

be thine! 



Saul 1 1 

By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou 

still shalt enjoy 
More indeed, than at first when inconscious, the life 

of a boy. 
Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each 
( deed thou hast done 

Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e'en 

as the sun 
Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil 

him, though tempests efface, 
Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must 

everywhere trace 
The results of his past summer-prime, — so, each 

ray of thy will, 
Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, 

shall thrill 
Thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till 

they too give forth 
A like cheer to their sons, who in turn, fill the South 
I and the North 

j With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. 

Carouse in the past! 
But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at 

last: 
As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at 

her height. 
So with nian — so his power and his beauty forever 

take flight. 



22 Saul 

No I Again a long draught of my soul-wine I Look 

forth o'er the years! 
Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin 

with the seer's! 
Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his 

tomb — bid arise 
A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, 

built to the skies. 
Let it mark where the great First King slumbers : 

whose fame would ye know? 
Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record 

shall go 
In great characters cut by the scribe,— Such was 

Saul, so he did; 
With the sages directing the work, by the populace 

chid, — 
For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! 

Which fault to amend. 
In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon 

they shall spend 
(See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, 

and record 
With the gold of the graver, Saul's story, — the 

statesman's great word 
Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The 

river's a- wave 
With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when 

prophet-winds rave: 



Saul 23 

So the pen gives unborn generations their due and 

their part 
In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God 

that thou art!'* 

XIV 

And behold while I sang .... but O Thou who 

didst grant me that day, 
And before it not seldom hast granted thy help to 

essay. 
Carry on and complete an adventure, — my shield 

and my sword 
In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy 

word was my word, — 
Still be with me, who then at the summit of human 

endeavor 
And scaling the highest man's thought could, gazed 

hopeless as ever 
On the new stretch of heaven above me — till, mighty 

to save, 
Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance — God's 

throne from man's grave! 
Let me tell out my tale to its ending — my voice to 

my heart 
Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last 

night I took part. 
As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with 

my sheep, 
And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep! 



24 Saul 

For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron 

upheaves 
The dawn strugghng with night on his shoulder, and 

Kidron retrieves 
Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine. 

XV 

I say then, — my song 
While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and ever 

more strong 
Made a proffer of good to console him — he slowly 

resumed 
His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right- 
hand replumed 
His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted 

the swathes 
Of his turban, and see — the huge sweat that his 

countenance bathes. 
He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his 

loins as of yore, 
And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the 

clasp set before. 
He is Saul, ye remember in glory, — ere error had bent 
The broad brow from the daily communion; and 

still, though much spent 
Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, 

God did choose, 
To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never 

quite lose. 



Saul 25 

So sank he along by the tent-prop till, stayed by the 

pile 
Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned 

there awhile, 
And sat out my singing, — one arm round the tent- 
prop, to raise 
His bent head, and the other hung slack — till I 

touched on the praise 
I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man 

patient there; 
And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then 

first I was 'ware 
That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his 

vast knees. 
Which were thrust out on each side around me, like 

oak-roots which please 
To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up 

to know 
If the best I could do had brought solace : he spoke 

not, but slow 
Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it 

with care 
Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: 

thro' my hair 
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my 

head, with kind power — 
All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a 

flower. 



26 Saul 

Thus held he me there with his great eyes that 
scrutinized mine — 

And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where 
was the sign? 

I yearned — 'Xould I help thee, my father, invent- 
ing a bliss, 

I would add, to that life of the past, both the future 
and this; 

I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages 
hence. 

As this moment, — had love but the warrant, love's 
heart to dispense!" 

XVI 

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more — no 
song more! outbroke — 

XVII 

*'I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw 
and I spoke: 

I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received 
in my brain 

And pronounced on the rest of his handwork — re- 
turned him again 

His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I 
saw: 

I report, as a man may of God's work — all's love, 
yet all's law. 



Saul 27 

Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each 

faculty tasked 
To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dew- 
drop was asked. 
Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wis- 
dom laid bare. 
Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to 

the Infinite Care! 
Do I task any faculty highest, to image success? 
I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no more and 

no less. 
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is 

seen God 
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul, 

and the clod. 
And thus looking within and around me, I ever 

renew 
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending 

upraises it too) 
The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's 

all-complete. 
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet. 
Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity 

known, 
I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of 

my own. 
There's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hood- 
wink, 
I am fain to keep still in abeyance, (I laugh as I think) 



2 8 Saul 

Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I 

worst 
E'en the Giver in one gift. — Behold, I could love if 

I durst! 
But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may 

o'ertake 
God's own speed in the one way of love: I abstain 

for love's sake. 
— What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? 

when doors great and small, 
Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the 

hundredth appall? 
In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the 

greatest of all? 
Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate 

gift, 
That I doubt his own love can compete with it? 

Here, the parts shift? 
Here, the creature surpass the Creator, — the end, 

what Began? 
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this 

man, 
And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet 

alone can? 
Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, 

much less power, 
To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvel- 
ous dower 



Smd 29 

Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make 

such a soul, 
Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering 

the whole? 
And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears 

attest) 
These good things being given, to go on, and give 

one more, the best? 
Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain 

at the height 
This perfection, — succeed with life's day-spring, 

death's minute of night? 
Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the 

mistake, 
Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now, — and bid 

him awake 
From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find 

himself set 
Clear and safe in new light and new life, — a new 

harmony yet 
To be run, and continued, and ended — who knows? — 

or endure! 
The man taught enough, by life's dream, of the rest 

to make sure; 
By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified 

bliss. 
And the next world's reward and repose, by the 

struggles in this. 



30 Saul 



XVIII 

'*I believe it! 'Tis thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who 

receive : 
In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe. 
All's one gift: thou canst grant it moreover, as 

prompt to my prayer 
As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms 

to the air. 
From thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, 

thy dread Sabaoth: 
/will? — the mere atoms despise me! Why am I 

not loth 
To look that, even that in the face, too? Why is it 

I dare 
Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops 

my despair? 
This: — 'tis not what man Does which exalts him, 

but what man Would do! 
See the King — I would help him but cannot, the 

wishes fall through. 
Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor 

to enrich. 
To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would — 

knowing which, 
I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak 

through me now! 
Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst 

thou — so wilt thou! 



Saul 3 1 

So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, utter- 
most crown — 
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor 

down 
One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no 

breath, 
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue 

with death! 
As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved 
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being 

Beloved ! 
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest 

shall stand the most weak. 
*Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my 

flesh, that I seek 
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it 

shall be 
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like 

to me, 
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand 

like this hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See 

the Christ stand!" 

XIX 

I know not too well how I found my way home in 

the night. 
There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and 

to right. 



3 2 Saul 

Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the 

aware : 
I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strug- 

glingly there. 
As a runner beset by the populace famished for news — 
Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell 

loosed with her crews; 
And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled 

and shot 
Out in fire the strong pain of oent knowledge: but 

I fainted not. 
For the Hand still impelled me at once and sup- 
ported, suppressed 
All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy 

behest, 
Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth 

sank to rest. 
Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from 

earth — 
Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender 

birth; 
In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the 

hills; 
In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden 

wind-thrills ; 
In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with 

eye sidling still 
Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds 

stiff and chill 



Saul '^'^ 

That rose heavily, as I approached them, made 
stupid with awe; 

E'en the serpent that shd away silent, — he felt the 
new law. 

The same stared in the white humid faces uoturned 
by the flowers; 

The same worked in the heart of the cedar and 
moved the vine-bowers; 

And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persist- 
ent and low, 

With their obstinate, all but hushed voices — *'E'en 
so, it is so!" 



A STUDY OF BROWNING'S 
SAUL 

This poem is a fine illustration of the power 
of genius over materials, of the way in which an 
active intellect works. 

Browning read in Shakespeare's '*The Tem- 
pest" the * 'aside" of Caliban, 

''I must obey; his art is of such power, 
It would control my dam's god, Setebos, 
And make a vassal of him," 

and, seizing upon the thought contained in the 
words *'my dam's god, Setebos," he conceived 
his wonderful poem, *' Caliban upon Setebos; or, 
Natural Theology in the Island." 

He read in "King Lear" the line of Edgar's 
song, "Child Rowland to the dark tower came, " 
and amplified it into the realistic imagery of 
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," a 
picture of constancy to an ideal. 

A short sentence, a phrase, even a word may 
be a hint sufficient for the inspiration of genius, 
which sees within the little, the commonplace, 
the unimportant, a seed-thought capable of mar- 
velous development. 

35 



36 A Study of Browning s Saul 

Browning read, as we all have many times, 
I Sam. xvi. 10-23. On this foundation he con- 
structed *'Saul, " one of his most famous master- 
pieces, if not his greatest, one of the grandest 
poems of the century. The first nine sections 
were published under the same name in No. VII. 
of a series of poems, entitled '* Bells and Pome- 
granates, " in 1845. They were enlarged by the 
addition of ten sections, and published in another 
series called *'Men and Women," in 1855. 

How much of the base of this poem did 
Browning take from the Bible.-* It is evident 
that the description of David, in section II., 
** God's child with his dew on thy gracious gold 
hair," is drawn from verse 7 of Samuel, though 
there is far less stress placed by the poet upon 
the physical beauty of David than is found in the 
Bible. Sections I., III., and IV. are true to the 
sacred record in representing Saul as possessed 
by an evil spirit, while the sections from V. to 
XVI. are likewise faithful in picturing David as 
ministering to Saul by means of his harp. But 
with this resemblance the comparison ends. 
The limited statements of scripture have been 
so skillfully combined with original ideas as to 
form a perfect harmony of truth and beauty. 

It is interesting and profitable to trace an 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 37 



author's use of his materials. One of the best 
ways to study Shakespeare is to examine care- 
fully his sources, then to note what from these 
sources is in the play and what is left out. 
What in the play is not suggested in the source. 
Find reasons for the selection, for the omission, 
and for the addition. We shall thus see how 
genius reveals the significance of the common- 
place, how keen and active are its mental and 
spiritual senses. 

David played. The Bible says nothing of the 
tunes or the songs, but Browning heard them 
all. The Bible states that *'Saul was refreshed, 
and was well, and the evil spirit departed from 
him," but there is not a hint as to David's feel- 
ing for Saul. The poet tells us how Saul was 
revived, how David felt. 

George Eliot, while walking one day, saw a 
weaver, stooped, pale, and sad, carrying a bundle. 
What made him look so? she asked herself. 
What could save and restore him? Could a 
little child do so much? The weaver became 
to her a living character, and her vision of him 
produced ''Silas Marner." 

Frances Hodgson Burnett, in her youth, met 
a young girl whose face haunted her until she 
created ''That Lass o' Lowrie's." 



3 8 A Study of Browning' s Saul 

Thus, by the alchemy of mind the humblest 
things of life may be transformed into the fin- 
ished creation of the artist. 

An analysis of the poem shows the following 
large divisions: 

A. The preparatory statement, giving the 
arrival of David, the condition of Saul, David's 
approach to Saul. I. -IV. 

B. The tunes and the songs, their effect on 
Saul. V.-XV. 

C. David's final statement, setting forth the 
revelation of God's love to him. XVI. -XIX. 

D. David's experience on leaving the tent. 
XIX. 

Consider the artist's sense of proportion in 
the use of his materials. It is here that the skill 
of the great novelist is displayed. We feel the 
charm of the story in its progress, but do not 
know one of the secrets of its fascination until 
we have looked into the distribution of pages 
and chapters, into the author's *' economy of 
means. ' ' 

In this analysis we see that the preparatory 
statement is briefly made because it is compara- 
tively unimportant. The second division is very 
long; it represents the conflict, the development 
of action in the poem. The final statement is 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 39 

comparatively brief, growing out of the second 
division; and David's experience on the home- 
ward way is still more briefly related, requiring 
only section XIX. 

Who was Saul? In answering this question, 
we are reminded of the importance of a knowl- 
edge of the Bible as a foundation for the study 
of English literature. The Bible and the litera- 
ture of the Greeks and the Romans have been 
described by Professor R. G. Moulton as *'our 
ancestral literature, the mines out of which our 
ancestors have drawn, the currency by which 
modern literature transacts itself. " It is not, 
however, necessary to become familiar with the 
classic literature of Greece and Rome through 
the Greek and the Latin languages. Only the 
few are able to read the Bible in Hebrew or 
Greek. We know it through translation, and as 
it thus has become power to us, so may the other 
branches of our ancestral literature through 
translation prepare us to appreciate modern 
literature. 

Saul was the first king of Israel, a son of 
Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin. He was 
anointed king by Samuel. He fought with 
great success against the enemies of Israel, and 
governed well in the earlier part of his reign, but 



40 A Study of Browning s Saul 

afterwards became wicked, committed great 
cruelties, and fell, together with three of his 
sons, in the battle of Mount Gilboa against the 
Philistines, about 105 5 B. C. At the time in- 
dicated in the poem Saul had been disobedient 
to divine command, stubborn, and rebellious; 
he had been reproved by Samuel and rejected 
by God. David, the youngest son of Jesse the 
Bethlehemite, had been anointed king by Samuel, 
to succeed Saul. *'The spirit of the Lord came 
upon David from that day forward"; ''But the 
spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an 
evil spirit from the Lord troubled him." He 
became a wreck, a ruin. We can easily imagine 
that ever since his final separation from Samuel 
he had had strange attacks of melancholy mad- 
ness, which to his servants seemed possession by 
an evil spirit. Samuel had been to him the 
means of communication with God and the 
source of divine blessing. 

Anna M. Stoddart, in a Browning Society 
paper, writes: *'Left to himself, Saul, whose 
headstrong pride was complicated with an in- 
vincible faith in God and a sense of his sov- 
ereignty, suffered awful relapses into despair. 
He endured, as a fallen angel might have done, 
the agonies of a helplessness at which his pride 



A Shidy of Browning' s Saul 41 

rebelled, but which his faith brought home to 
him." She reminds us that the Jews had no 
middle course, that they were either safe in the 
hands of God or wrecked in their own. Saul 
had made his choice and was wrecked. 

The power of music was understood at that 
early day. David was noted for cunning in play- 
ing. The servants of Saul had persuaded him 
to send to Jesse for ''thy son which is with the 
sheep." Thus David had stood before the 
King, had found favor in his sight, had played 
upon the harp, and had caused the evil spirit to 
depart for the time. 

The poem is dramatic narrative, characterized 
by a play of imagination and passion that places 
it in the class of dramatic lyrics. Dr. Oscar L. 
Triggs maintains that Browning has contributed 
to poetry three things, a new personality, a new 
method, and a new philosophy; that his method 
has three unique features, the form of the dra- 
matic monologue, the method of idealism, and 
the principle of correspondency. He shows how 
Browning's monologists differ from those of any 
other poet by adding an environment, a scenic 
background, outlining against it their own plot 
and character, and suggesting the composition of 
still other personages caught in the situation. 



42 A Study of Browning' s Saul 

His principle of correspondency makes the con- 
tent of the poem determine its form. Therefore 
Browning has as many forms or molds of expres- 
sion as he has characters and poems. Rough- 
ness, ruggedness, double and grotesque rhymes, 
are in harmony with the subject embodied. 
** Caliban upon Setebos, " **The Grammarian's 
Funeral," and the *' Soliloquy of the Spanish 
Cloister" are excellent illustrations. ''Saul" is 
comparatively simple and perfect in expression, 
regular, musical, exquisitely beautiful, because 
the content is noble and attractive in the highest 
degree. 

A. The preparatory statement, giving the 
arrival of David, the condition of Saul David's 
approach to Saul. I. -IV. 

The poem opens with the arrival of David in 
response to a special messenger from the king. 
Observe that Browning represents David as the 
speaker, telling over, early in the morning, alone 
with his sheep by the brook Kidron, the wonder- 
ful experience that came to him on the afternoon 
and evening of the day before. 

Abner, Saul's first cousin, and the com- 
mander-in-chief of his army, greets David with 
a gladness and a hope which his coming has 
brought to hearts in the depths of anxiety and 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 43 

fear. From section I. we learn that for three 
days and three nights Saul had remained alone 
in the black silence of the mid-tent of his royal 
pavilion, not a sound escaping to tell of the 
agony within, and that his servants would neither 
eat nor drink until they knew that their king was 
alive. 

Mark the rare beauty of expression of sec- 
tion II. The loveliness of the youthful David 
inspires Abner with the thrill of expectancy. 

The alliteration of ^ in the second line is force- 
ful, and it would be difficult to find a more 
pleasing choice of adjectives than ' 'gracious, 
gold. ' ' David rises before us, * * a slender youth, 
quick of movement, hair of reddish gold, face 
and form of magnetic gentleness and tender- 
ness." The ''lilies still living and blue" impart 
to us an atmosphere of purity and coolness. 
When David started on his mission to Saul at 
Elah, "he had plucked, by the waters of Kidron, 
a handful of blue irises, and twined their broad 
leaves round the strings of his harp, to shield 
them from the fierce heat of his journey over 
that desolate region where the sterile hills lie 
exposed to the glare of noon, and the very stones 
and sand of the valleys are so scorched that part 
of it is known as the 'Valley of Fire.* '' 



44 ^ Study of Browning' s Saul 

In section III. David relates how, first, he 
knelt to the God of his fathers, then ran o'er the 
hot sand, stooped under the outer enclosure of 
the mid-tent, groped on hands and knees to the 
second enclosure, prayed again, **and opened 
the fold-skirts and entered and was not afraid." 
No voice replied to his gentle announcement, 
**Here is David, thy servant!" Saul was lost 
to sense. When David's eyes, dazzled by the 
glare of the afternoon sun, became gradually 
accustomed to the darkness, he descried the 
huge main prop, with its cross-beam supporting 
the pavilion, then slowly to his sight appeared a 
figure against it, then a sunbeam suddenly falling 
upon it through the tent roof revealed to him 
Saul. 

Section IV. completes the first topic of the 
outline and presents a remarkable picture of 
Saul. Mark the nobility and appropriateness 
of the simile. Saul in his tent is like the king- 
serpent, caught in his pangs, hanging heavily in 
the pine, away from his kind, waiting for his 
change which shall come with the springtime. 

In our study of literature we should question 
the figure of speech. What does the figure 
bring to the idea.-* Does it degrade or ennoble 
its subject? In the present case we wish to 



A Study of Browning s Smd 45 

dignify Saul even in his wretchedness. What 
power, greatness, loneliness, agony, possible 
deliverance, in this picture of the king-serpent; 
what strength in the accumulation of epithets, 
*' drear and stark, blind and dumb!" Try to 
see everything that is contained in a piece of 
literature. There is no better practice than to 
state aloud without the text every detail in a 
selection; as, for example, every detail in the 
narration before David went into the tent, every 
detail in the description of Saul. This becomes 
a more and more difficult task as the poem oro- 
ceeds. 

B. The tunes and the songs, their effect on 
Saul. V.-XV. 

Section V. opens the main action. David 
took his harp, untwined the lilies, and began to 
play. George Willis Cooke says, in his ''Brown- 
ing Guide-Book, " that David presents three 
series of motives to Saul, each series rising higher 
than the preceding. 

I. Tunes played to the brutes. 

1. To the sheep, in V. 

2. To the quail, in VI. 

3. To the crickets, in VI . 

4. To the jerboa, in VI. 



4^ A Study of Browning' s Saul 

II. The help-tunes of the great epochs in 
human life. 

1. Reapers, in VII. 

2. Burial, in VII. 

3. Marriage, in VIL 

4. Soldiers, in VII. 

5. Priests, in VII. 

III. Songs of human aspiration. 

1. The wild joys of living, in IX. 

2. The fame crowning ambition and deeds, 

in IX. 

3. The praise of unborn generations, in 

XIII. 

4. The next world's reward and repose, in 

XVII. 

5. The love which is the Christ, in XVIII. 

A general list of eleven might be made as 
follows: 
I. Animal tunes. 

1. The folding tune, in V. 

2. The quail tune, in VI. 

3. The cricket tune, in VI. 

4. The jerboa tune, in VI. 
II. Human tunes. 

5. The reaper's tune, in VII. 

6. The funeral tune, in VII. 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 47 

7. The marriage tune, in VII. 

8. The friendship tune, in VII. 

9. The Levite chant, in VII. 
III. Harp and voice. 

10. Song of Saul's life before he was king, 

in IX. and X. 

11. Song of Saul's future glory, in XIII., 

XVII., XVIII. 

Another classification may be made on the 
principle of the effect of these tunes and songs 
upon Saul, giving three classes: 
I. The animal and the human tunes, V.-IX. 
Saul groaned, he shuddered. 
II. The song of Saul's life before he was king, 
IX. 
Saul was struck by his name, was left stand- 
ing, released, and aware. 
III. The song of Saul's future glory, XIII. 

Saul sat, observed and caressed David, 
recognizing his beauty, his sweetness, 
and his love. 

Tracing the steps in Saul's return to con- 
scious life, exercising the thought that leads to 
individual discovery, is another excellent means 
of mental training. Laboratory work is no 
longer confined to instruction in science, but is 



4 8 A Study of Browning^ s Said 

now a special feature in the teaching of litera- 
ture, and such original investigation as this poem 
offers may be regarded as one phase of English 
laboratory work. The pouring-in process, the 
phonograph process, is happily passing from all 
departments of instruction. 

Let us return to section V. for the considera- 
tion of the action and its expression. 

David first played the tune used at the sheep- 
folding. Is Browning's picture of the sheep a 
true one? Could the shepherd play a tune that 
would bring them one by one to the pen-door? 
How beautiful they are, clean, sweet, whole, 
because they have fed '* where the long grasses 
stifle the water within the stream's bed." Do 
sheep follow one after another, 

"As star follows star 
Into eve and the blue far above us — so blue and so 
far"? 

Is the simile of the star a good one? Was it 
natural for David to associate the sheep with the 
stars? This tune should affect Saul because he 
was a shepherd before he was a warrior. 

The jerboa is a small jumping rodent, or 
jumping hare, *'half bird and half mouse," 
Browning says. 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 49 

The last lines of section VI., 

*'God made all the creatures and gave them our love 

and our fear, 
To give sign, we and they are his children, one 

family here," 

reflect the spirit of our age, not that of David's 
time, love for animals and respect for their rights. 
This feeling toward lower animate life is one of 
the characteristics of the romantic movement of 
our century, and is well represented by the poets 
Burns, Cowper, Coleridge, Shelley, and Words- 
worth. Shelley carried the sentiment so far as 
to become a vegetarian. The new spirit has 
given us our present interest in animal life and 
our protection of it. 

Finding Saul unmoved, David left the tunes 
that ^' touch and please the creatures of the pas- 
ture lands, ' ' and turned to the help-tunes of the 
great epochs in human life. First, the glad 
wine-song of the reapers, their joy and their 
fellowship in labor; then the last song for the 
dead; the happy chant of the marriage; and the 
great march of men united in building for service 
or defense. Is there a historical foundation for 
this music.'* In Isaiah xvi. 9, 10, and in 2 Chron. 
XXXV. 25, we have references to songs of reapers 
and songs of lamentation. In answer to this 



50 A Study of Browning' s Saul 

question, Rabbi Charles Fleischer, of Boston, 
said: "I believe that David's songs in Brown- 
ing's poem 'Saul' are the inspired melodies of 
our nineteenth-century David rather than the 
songs of Israel's poetic shepherd king. While, 
then, I believe that these melodies were not 
current among the Jews of old, I know that they 
would serve well to express beliefs and ideals 
characteristic of the best minds among the Jews 
to-day. ' ' 

These strains of elemental pleasure, of human 
companionship, happiness, and love, with all 
their appeal to memory and to emotion, failed 
to rouse the king from his death-like lethargy. 
Once more the harp was tuned, now to the 
deeper strain of worship, to the grand proces- 
sional chorus of the Levites as they went up ''to 
the altar in glory enthroned.'* But David's 
harp ceased quickly, "for here in the darkness 
Saul groaned," while the tent shook with the 
shudder that passed through the frame of this 
mighty man. 

Were the songs cumulative in their effect 
upon Saul, only the chant of the Levites being 
needed to complete the silent influence of those 
preceding it.-^ Or was it the power of religion, 
the strength of the religious associations of a 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 51 

lifetime centered in this sacred chorus, making 
him realize his broken communion with God, the 
awful contrast between his former self and his 
present condition? The influence which so pain- 
fully affected the spirit of Saul was doubtless the 
result both of the cumulative power of the melo- 
dies, and the sacred nature of the chant of the 
Levites, which linked it to the most precious 
things of his life in the past. 

Note the language of section VIII., the mar- 
velous description of jewels, *' lordly male- 
sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart.'* 
Browning resembled George Eliot in his love for 
jewels. It is said of her that she preferred 
precious stones to flowers, so great was her 
pleasure in the play of colors. 

But only Saul's head moved, his body still 
hung erect in its suffering. He had been 
reached, yet only reached. So David bent 
again to the harp. Now Saul, and Saul alone, 
filled his mind and inspired a song — not the fail- 
ure before him, but the ideal Saul in the years 
of his early manhood. Section IX. contains the 
words of the song, a tribute to physical life and 
to the perfection of Saul's development through 
nature, happy family relations, and national 
greatness, that for thought, for force and artistic 



52 A Study of Browning' s Saul 

beauty of expression grows more impressive and 
delightful the more familiar we are with it. The 
first twelve lines should be thoroughly memo- 
rized by us all and often repeated. They will 
serve as a tonic for physical weakness. We 
should expect such lines from a poet who was 
distinguished for magnificent physique, health, 
vigor of body and mind, massive breadth of 
character, courage, cheerfulness, optimism, love 
of nature and of art, joy in fellowship with every 
living thing. 

One of the most hopeful signs of to-day is 
our growing appreciation of man's body, and our 
consequent effort to raise it to the perfection of all 
its powers. The delicate, fainting maid is giving 
place in life and in literature to the nut-brown 
maid; the feeble scholar, his brow sicklied o'er 
with the pale cast of thought, is receding from 
ministerial and student life. A professor wittily 
remarked that now only the unusually pressed 
or the unusually dull burn midnight oil. Many 
students have heretofore been defrauded in mat- 
ters of health. Until recently section IX. could 
have been applicable to young men only, not to 
young women. Let us strive to extend the 
influence of the spirit of these lines. Do we 
feel the thrill of the physical life they picture? 



A Study of Browning' s Saul ^2i 



Have we lived or visited where the description 
is appropriate in its details? 

David sets forth three kinds of good in this 
song: physical life, life in the family, life in the 
nation. Saul has reached the highest attainment 
in each of these. Love, and even human sor- 
row, in the home life, work, friendship, ambition, 
great deeds, have contributed to the develop- 
ment of this boyhood of wonder and hope, until 
at last, crowned by fame, all gifts have been 

"Brought to blaze on the head of one creature — 
King Saul!" 

The closing lines of this section, as published in 
*' Bells and Pomegranates" in 1845, are as 
follows: 

"On one head the joy and the pride, even rage like 

the throe 
That opes the rock, helps its glad labor, and lets 

the gold go — 
And ambition that sees a man lead it — oh, all of 

these — all 
Combine to unite in one creature — Saul!" 

The words, "like the throe," etc., explain the 
meaning of "rage." David has just spoken of 
beauty and love, and now puts rage in the same 
category, offering his explanation on the instant. 



54 ^ Study of Browning' s Saul 

Gold is usually found in cracks of the rock that 
has been rent asunder by throes or convulsions 
of nature; and as the rending *'opes the rock, 
helps its glad labor, and lets the gold go," so 
the best of life is frequently revealed by dis- 
ruptive forces. This is Browning's common 
doctrine of evil. 

It seems at first thought incredible to us that 
Browning should ever have ended the poem here. 
It is said that when he thus closed it he meant 
us to suppose Saul free, that the glory of his 
past record was enough to restore him and to 
inspire him in the future. In the ten years fol- 
lowing the first publication, Browning lived and 
rounded out human experience, and in the new 
light of this life and experience he doubtless 
composed the fuller song. Keep the thought in 
mind when you read the poem, and see if you 
cannot feel this reason for the addition. 

Section X. opens with the revelation of 
David's soul to us, the intensity of his desire to 
break the spell that bound the man, to rescue 
him from despair by the memory of that royal 
past. So intense was his spirit that it leaped 
through heart, hand, harp, and voice to one 
mighty appeal — '*Saul!" — that thrilled with a 
long shudder the black, lifeless frame and the 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 55 

tent, and left the king standing, released and 
conscious. 

Then follows another of the forcible and 
beautiful figures of the poem. It is long, 
requiring a vigorous mind for its production, as 
for its appreciation. Saul is the mountain from 
whose breast the year's weight of snow has at 
last suddenly fallen under the rays of the return- 
ing sun; David in his beauty is the springtime, 
softening that mountain for the nest of the bird 
and the feet of the goat with its young. The 
figure is perfect in application. As the breast- 
plate of snow long seems to withstand the gentle 
yet increasing warmth of the golden rays directed 
toward it, but finally is loosened and comes 
thundering down to the base, so Saul seemed to 
resist the sweet and ever stronger influence of 
harp and voice, yet in time was released with the 
convulsion of his being. He was awakened 
from death, but real life had not returned to 
him. He must be recalled to hope and activity 
ere the work of the singer is complete. His 
vacant eyes gave sign that, though he was con- 
scious, he had no interest in the affairs of life. 
One could gaze at them, just as in autumn one 
may w^tch without fear of harm the pallid sun 
as it drops into the ocean, or as it sinks behind 



56 A Study of Browning' s Saul 

a massive range of hills. The spirit was lost to 
the eyes, as the true nature to the sunset. We 
assume here that the poet had in mind two 
autumn sunsets. David was troubled. How 
could he enliven and sustain the king? 

Mark the figure, **the wine of this life," and 
compare with ''the palm-wine" of section XIII. 
David's song had made Saul's past yield all its 
beauty and strength, its full cup of wine, but 
this had served only to arouse, to call back to 
life. Saul would rather die than live. What 
vintage could bear wine more potent "to brighten 
the eye and bring blood to the lip"? 

We pass to section XII. As David thus 
sought for nobler truth, he felt his spirit coming 
under the power of fancy, as in days gone by 
when, alone with his sheep, he mused on man 
and his life in the great world; and his harp 
responded to the higher, richer notes of section 
XIII. He rose from the plane of sense; Saul 
was right in rejecting the comforts of a merely 
mortal existence. 

What does the palm-tree stand for? What 
the palm-wine? The tree represents the physi- 
cal life of man, slowly developing to perfect 
maturity, its active work and its pleasures; the 
palm-wine, all the joy which comes to man 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 57 

through the spiritual nature and all the good 
which proceeds from that nature. As the palm- 
tree is important only for its fruit, its wine, so 
Saul's life was significant only for what it yielded 
to himself and to the world. What is the value 
of the long description of the palm-tree.'' It 
symbolizes the slow development of man from 
childhood to maturity. David poured for him 
two long draughts of soul-wine: first, he could 
rejoice in the outcome of his own deeds, their 
effect upon his people; and second, he could 
look forward to an immortality of fame. Thus, 
through the spirit alone could he gain real sat- 
isfaction. As the sun looks upon nothing 
which his rays have not produced, so Saul 
might see in the flash of his own will, his 
passion and prowess, the germ of the radi- 
ance that filled North and South, the inspira- 
tion to the great deeds of his people, both 
fathers and sons. He must pass away even 
as do the rose and the lion, but no! the 
chisel and the pen will give to generations yet 
unborn a part in his being, and will record him 
the first of the mighty. Let him then thank 
God and take courage. 

This second draught of soul-wine represents 
the only immortality in which George Eliot be- 



58 A Study of Browning' s Saul 



lieved. She expressed her longing for it in the 
famous Hnes, 

**0 may I join the choir invisible 

Of those immortal dead who live again 

In minds made better by their presence: live 

In pulses stirred to generosity, 

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 

For miserable aims that end with self, 

In thoughts subhme that pierce the night like stars. 

And with their mild persistence urge man's search 

To vaster issues." 

Professor Corson says that a cardinal idea 
with Browning is the regeneration of men through 
a personality which brings new feeling fresh from 
God, that the quickening, regenerating power of 
personality is everywhere exhibited in his poetry. 
Concerning the first twenty-five lines of section 
XIII., which exult in the immortality of Saul's 
deeds, he writes: *'In the concluding lines is set 
forth what might be characterized as the apostolic 
succession of a great personality — the succession 
of those 'who in turn fill the South and the 
North with the radiance his deed was the germ 
of. ' " He further writes: "What follows in 
David's song gives expression to the other mode 
of transmitting a great personality; that is, 
through records that 'give unborn generations 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 59 

their due and their part in his being, ' and also 
to what those records owe their effectiveness, 
and are saved from becoming a dead letter. ' ' 

We must have observed in our study of the 
poem how fine is Browning's use of external 
nature, and how true he is to David's character 
in presenting him in close touch with that nature. 
How long, think you, would it require to learn 
all that David knew of animal and plant, of earth 
and sky? His knowledge of nature and his love 
for it are shown in Psalms xix. and xxiii. 

One of the most interesting of present studies 
in literature is the author's use of external nature, 
and the comparative study of authors in this 
respect is specially valuable. How do the writ- 
ers of the eighteenth century compare with those 
of the nineteenth in this matter? How do the 
poets differ in their attitude towards nature? 
Compare Chaucer, Shakespeare, Scott, Burns, 
Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Bryant, Longfel- 
low, and Lowell. By this means, our own 
observation of nature is enlarged, our love for 
it strengthened, and our appreciation of the 
novelist and the poet greatly advanced. 

At section XIV. in the narration, the mem- 
ory of the marvels of David's experience on the 
previous night, of the wonderful revelation made 



6o A Study of Browning'' s Saul 

to him, so overcomes him that he looks to God 
for his presence with him as in the past, that he 
may tell out the tale to its ending, his voice to 
his harp. He has wakened in the early dawn in 
a dewy covert of the valley of the brook Kidron, 
east of Jerusalem, not far from Bethlehem. 
Alone with the sheep, his soul still filled with 
awe, he is recalling every incident of the experi- 
ence with "fear lest the terrible glory evanish 
like sheep." 

And what was the effect upon Saul of the 
song of his undying fame? In section XV. we 
read hov/ he slowly resumed his old motions and 
kingly habits, smoothed his hair, adjusted his 
turban, wiped the sweat of agony from his face, 
girded his loins as of yore, and put on his arm- 
lets. He is the same Saul whom God chose to 
be king. He sank upon the heap of garments 
at the base of the tent-prop, at first with one 
arm around the prop to support his head, the 
other slack at his side. As David's strains rose 
to the glory of Saul in all time, the king encir- 
cled him with his vast knees, and responded to 
his earnest look by laying his hand gently but 
firmly upon the youthful brow, caressing the 
hair, and bending back the lovely face to peruse 
it as one might scan the beautiful flower. 



A Study of Browning s Saul 6i 

Thus face to face were the two whom God had 
anointed; the one whom he had rejected, the 
other whom he had chosen and inspired. 

The Hne **To receive what a man may waste, 
desecrate, never quite lose," is significant as 
one of the many evidences in Browning's works of 
his behef in the divine and eternal nature of man. 

Had David failed, or succeeded, at the open- 
ing of section XVII. ? As he was held in Saul's 
embrace, the great dark eyes of the king look- 
ing into his, his soul thrilled with even deeper 
love, with such intensity of love as moved his 
whole being in passionate desire and longing to 
aid and to bless beyond all that he had given. 
This yearning in his heart is evidence that, 
though he had done great things, he had not 
fully succeeded, had not accomplished all he 
sought, that he had reached the limit of the 
power of human love. We are reminded of the 
disciples when Christ came down from the Mount 
of Transfiguration and found them in their help- 
lessness unable to cast out the dumb spirit from 
the afflicted boy. The king's present need far 
exceeded David's ability to serve, for though 
restored to himself, he was yet a wreck, his life 
and his bearing much spent. David's love 
would bestow upon Saul not only that glorious 



62 A Study of Browning s Saul 

life of the past and of the future, all that earth 
can yield to man, but would give ''new life alto- 
gether, as good ages hence as this moment," 
immortal life and blessedness. 

*'And so, in this mood, with this divine 
desire, he is carried beyond harp and song into 
the vision and message of the prophet." God 
revealed to his soul the highest truth of life. 
See how that moment of revelation is described 
in the poem : 

**then at the summit of human endeavor 
And scaling the highest man's thought could, gazed 

hopeless as ever 
On the new stretch of heaven above me — till, mighty 

to save, 
Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance — 

God's throne from man's grave!" 

Here David dropped the harp to use it no more 
in this service, giving utterance with words alone 
to the divine voice that spoke within him, ''as if 
he were himself the harp of God vibrating at the 
touch of the Master's fingers." 

What is the function of music in the poeni? 
It is plainly used, not as an end in itself, but as 
a means to the exalted end in view. Rev. Pro- 
fessor E. Johnson, in a Browning Society paper, 
writes: "Browning is, in common with all poets, 



A Study of Browning s Saul ^Z 

both musician and painter, but much more the 
latter than the former. He is never for a mo- 
ment the slave of his ear, if I may so express it. 
We knov^ that he has, on the contrary, the mas- 
tery of music. But music helps and supports 
his imagination, never controls it. Music is to 
Browning an inarticulate revelation of the truth 
of the supersensual world, the 'earnest of a 
heaven.' He is no voluptuary in music. Music 
is simply the means by which the soul wings its 
way into the azure of spiritual theory and con- 
templation. 'Saul' is a magnificent interpreta- 
tion of the old theme, a favorite with the mystics, 
that evil spirits are driven out by music. But 
in this interpretation it is not the mere tones, the 
thrumming on the harp, it is the religious move- 
ment of the intelligence, it is the truth of Divine 
love throbbing in every chord, which constitutes 
the spell." 

The vision and the message of the prophetic 
David fill sections XVH. and XVHI. 

C. David's final statement, setting forth the 
revelation of God's love to him. XVI. -XIX. 

A careful paraphrase of section XVII. will 
furnish another excellent exercise. 

It may be separated into two divisions, as 
follows: 



64 A Study of Browning s Saul 

1. David's experience up to the moment of 
seeing the new truth, lines 1-25. 

2. The new truth, Hues 26-49. 

The first division may be subdivided as fol- 
lows: 

1. David's consciousness of his own little- 
ness as he studies God's power, lines 1-17. 

2. In the one way of love he may outstrip 
God, lines 18-25. 

Try to state, in the first person, to some 
friend the substance of the opening twenty-five 
lines, and see if David's meaning is clear to that 
friend. This practice will aid your own under- 
standing of them. Macaulay used to read his 
writings to his maid to test their clearness of 
expression. 

David sees in himself the work of God's 
hand, and with the brain given him for judg- 
ment, he looks out upon the world and finds that 
all is pervaded by love, and yet all is governed 
by law. Each attempt to understand God in the 
least thing has but served to open unfathomable 
depths of wisdom and power, compared with 
which man's knowledge, wisdom, and forethought 
are as nothing. Man's work is imperfect; he can 
only dream of success; but when he looks upon 
creation, he sees that perfection everywhere, ''in 



A Study of Browning's Saul 65 

the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul, and 
the clod." Thus looking within and around 
him, he submits in the spirit of humility '*man's 
nothing-perfect to God's all-complete," and by 
this act of humility is exalted toward God. 

Such is the thought of the seventeen lines, 
many of which lend themselves finely to quota- 
tion, as, for example, 

''Each faculty tasked 
To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dew- 
drop was asked." 

Tennyson doubtless had in mind an idea similar 
to that of this line when he wrote, 

"Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies, 
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is." 

The blessedness of the grace of humility has 
never been more fittingly described, "that stoop 
of the soul which in bending upraises it, too," 
*'by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his 
feet." 

Man rises superior to the beast of the field 
in his ability to see the greatness of God in ere- 



66 A Study of Browning' s Saul 

ation. He is exalted by that act of imagination 
which looks through the seen to the unseen 
Cause. The humble pastor who, standing in 
the valley, lifted his hat to the distant hills, was 
a lofty man in spirit. An old Scotch Highlander, 
poor and weak, was observed to go out from his 
little cottage early each morning and to stand, 
with bonnet off, looking upward to the moun- 
tains as if in silent prayer. When questioned 
concerning the habit, he replied, **I worship the 
Father when my soul pays its tribute to the 
beauty of his world. ' ' 

But David finds one faculty in his own soul, 
pleasant in its use, which he dare not exercise 
fully lest in its display he outstrip God, the 
Giver — the faculty of love. How he could love! 
But shall he so worst the Maker of all? No, 
not for love's sake. The argument of the 
twenty-five lines is practically this: When I, 
David, looked upon God's power in creation, my 
own littleness overcame me; but when I looked 
upon Saul, I seemed to love him more than God 
did. 

A father by the bedside of his suffering child 
had David's experience. He said that when he 
looked up to the stars, he thought that God 
loved man; but when he looked at his sick child, 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 67 

he could only cry out, **Why does not God love 
him as I do!" 

It seemed to David that he surpassed the 
Creator in the one particular of loving, that in 
all the rest he was "nothing-perfect," God * 'all- 
complete." 

Here David retraces his thought as if appalled 
at the conclusion his logic has reached. In his 
study of the world, the Creator was revealed to 
him at every step of the way, door after door of 
knowledge opening at his touch. God was re- 
flected in the least as in the greatest, immanent 
in nature and in man. If, then, David has seen 
God reflected in the least things, ninety-nine 
doors opening to reveal him, shall the hundredth 
door appall him, shall he doubt that in the great- 
est of all things, human love, God is not even 
more fully reflected? He will not belittle God's 
love, as at first thought. Cannot the Giver 
here, as elsewhere, compete with the gift of his 
own hand? Shall the creature surpass the 
Creator? David yearns to do all, to give all to 
Saul, but he is powerless to aid him further. 
Suppose, for a moment, that David had created 
Saul, had endowed him with the marvelous life 
of which he has just sung, and had placed him 
in such a wonderful world as ours; do not his 



68 A Study of Browning' s Saul 

flowing tears, the token of his love, prove that 
he would not forsake such a creature in ruin, but 
would save and redeem and restore him, crown 
him with immortality? Would he not at the 
right moment interfere with his omnipotent 
power and rescue Saul, bid him awake to the 
light of a new and a higher life? Would he not 
by the pain and the struggle of this life of pro- 
bation prepare him to gain that higher being, and 
reward him with intensified bliss? If such is the 
desire of David the creature's soul, for its fellow- 
creature, a like love and a like desire, infinite in 
degree and linked with infinite power to fulfil, 
must exist in the heart of the Eternal. Then 
it is clear that God has found a way of redemp- 
tion for man, and has made possible to him 
an immortality of ever advancing life, light, 
and joy. 

David's reasoning is similar to Job's when, 
turning his back upon the false counsel of his 
friends, he felt that there must be in God not 
only the wisdom and the power which they 
ascribed to him, but the love and the sympathy 
which they practically denied to him; and as 
David groped his way to the light, so Job came 
out of the depths with the triumphant cry, "I 
know that my Redeemer liveth!" 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 69 

George Eliot puts the same argument into 
the mouth of the simple-hearted, unlettered, but 
loving and helpful Dolly Winthrop: ''But what 
come to me as clear as the daylight, it was when 
I was troubling over poor Bessy Fawkes, and it 
allays comes into my head when I'm sorry for 
folks, and feel as I can't do a power to help 'em, 
not if I was to get up i' the middle o' the night — 
it comes into my head as Them above has got a 
deal tenderer heart nor what I've got — for I 
can't be anyways better nor Them as made me, 
and if anything looks hard to me, its because 
there's things I don't know on." 

Section XVIII. opens with David's glad cry 
of faith, ''I believe it!" What is the antece- 
dent of ''it".'* The proposition just reached at 
the close of section XVII., the general proposi- 
tion of immortality, the immortality David has 
pictured. God is the giver of it, we the receiv- 
ers of it. 

"In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to 
believe." 

In God's eternal existence is ours; in the fact 
that God has will and power to give rests our 
reception of the gift. "The last," that is, 
David, is in "the first," or God; when God 



yo A Study of Browning' s Saul 

wills, David wills and acts. The converse of 
the statement is, that as David wills and acts, 
so God exists as will and conduct; then, further, 
as David loves, so God must be love. We have 
here an expression of the transcendentalism 
which is characteristic of Browning's thought. 
The **it" of the third line is, also, immortality, 
or the power to believe in immortality. 

The word **Sabaoth" in line five is a Hebrew 
term meaning * 'hosts," or "armies," and is 
used in the Bible as a designation of the Almighty, 
an appellation of the Lord as Ruler over all. 
We find it preserved in Rom. ix. 29, and in 
James v. 4. It unites the ideas of might and 
glory, the angelic hosts being connected with the 
revelation of Sinai. The worlds, life, and nature 
emanate from the will of God, and they stand 
ever ready to execute that will. They are his 
Sabaoth, his hosts, his armies. 

Here David contrasts his own weakness with 
the omnipotence of God. ''Do I will at my 
best?" he says in effect, "How much can I 
accomplish? So little that the very atoms, the 
least of created things, would despise me." But 
the vision upon him fresh from God enables 
him to look even this seemingly hopeless fact in 
the face, to despair not because of this weak- 



A Study of Browning s Saul 7^ 



ness. Man is not exalted by what he accom- 
pUshes, but by what, with all the intensity of his 
being, he sincerely wills or desires to do. Not 
in the flesh, but in the spirit of man is the gain 
or the loss, the deed or the failure, the strength 
or the weakness. Browning has made us forever 
his debtors for the inspiration of the line, 

*' 'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but 
what man Would do!" 

Observe the illustration of this principle. David 
wishes to help Saul, and his desire is so great 
that he would do all he could to attain. He 
would wrestle with the strength of his might if 
this would lift the king from sorrow; he would 
make himself poor if thereby he might enrich 
him; he would even starve his own life out if 
this act would build up the king; but he knows 
that the greatest effort, sacrifice, or suffering he 
could undergo may be of no avail. Yet the 
spirit that prompts him to do all, to give all, the 
spirit of full love that leads to consecration of 
labor for Saul, has rendered his service to the 
king as perfect as though he had bestowed upon 
him every gift his soul craved. 

Love for fellowman, in its sincerity and its 
fulness, is perfect service. Love is the fulfilling 



72 A Study of Browning' s Saul 

of the law. Though empty-handed, destitute 
of all things, we may yet offer to God and to 
man a perfect service, the devotion of supreme 
love. No higher truth has ever been revealed 
to man. Love, which is the universal principle 
of Browning's philosophy, is grandly illustrated 
in ''Saul.'' 

We are prepared for the sublime conclusion 
of David's inspired reasoning. Would he render 
such service? Would he suffer to the uttermost 
for love's sake? So will God. Love ineffable, 
glorious, supreme, infinite, shall be His highest 
crown, wholly filling fne universe with its pres- 
ence and enfolding every creature in its embrace. 

**It is by no breath, 
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue 
with death!" 

In other words, it is not an easy task to save 
Saul, to redeem the creature. But as God's 
Love is seen to be almighty, so let him prove 
that his power to make his creatures love him, 
that power which exists with Love and for its 
service, is also almighty. How shall He best 
prove such love for the creature? David gives 
answer for the race: 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 73 

*'He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest 

shall stand the most weak. 
'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! my 

flesh, that I seek 
In the Godhead!'* 

Let Him who did most, the Creator, bear most, 
suffer most for us, be the Christ. Let Omnipo- 
tence become weakness, let the Godhead take 
upon itself the humanity of flesh. David seeks 
this proof of the Creator's love toward us; he 
seeks it, he finds it. 

*'0 Saul, it shall be 
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like 

to me. 
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand 

like this hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See 

the Christ stand!" 

Thus does the poet represent David with 
inspired vision, looking forward through ten cen- 
turies to the advent of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, 
the world's Redeemer. Christ is the supreme 
illustration of Divine Love. 

Two questions are suggested by section 
XVHL Could we know that God loves us if 
he had not shown his love in the Saviour? 
Would it be possible for us to love God if he 



74 ^ Shidy of Browning' s Saul 

had not revealed his nature to us in Christ? 
The wisdom and the power of God are every- 
where manifest throughout the universe. But 
what of his love? Does this demand revelation? 

There are interpreters of this poem who 
believe that Browning did not limit David's vis- 
ion to the Christ of Jewish prophecy. They 
regard David as clairvoyant, so to speak, view- 
ing the remotest future of our race, beholding 
the actual Christ, the type of perfected man, the 
regenerative principle of humanity. 

D. David's experience on leaving the tent. 
XIX. 

The mission of the sweet singer of Israel to 
Saul, is ended. He has brought him to One 
who is mighty to save, to God himself, who 
alone is sufficient for man's deepest need. He 
may leave him now, and return to his sheep. 
But he is not yet done with the marvelous. 
His path homeward in the night appeared to be 
alive, crowded with the presence of spirits eager 
to bear witness to the truth of the wonderful 
revelation. Earth and sky, heaven and hell, the 
whole universe, seemed in travail together until 
they might be delivered of the new truth. 
David, beset on every side like a messenger, 
must have fainted as he pressed his way, had 



A Study of Browning' s Saul JS 

not God's hand upheld him and at last sunk the 
rapture of creation in quiet. He watched Na- 
ture's emotion die out in the gray of the dawn. 
The hills, the forests, the wind, the wild beasts 
and the birds, even the serpent that slid away 
silent, were filled with wonder, dread, and awe 
at the knowledge of the new law; while the 
flowers, the cedars, and the vines were stirred 
to the heart, 

**And the little brooks witnessing murmured, per- 
sistent and low, 

With their obstinate, all but hushed voices — 'E'en 
so, it is so!' " 

And what was this new law? The Law of Love, 
that Love which lifted up the Son of Man, that 
thus He might draw all men unto Him. The 
section is also indicative of a cosmic love to 
which Walt Whitman refers in the line in his 
**Song of Myself," the "kelson of the creation 
is love." The entire stanza in the song is as 
follows: 

"Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and 
knowledge that pass all the argument of the 
earth, 

And I know that the hand of God is the promise of 
my own. 



76 A Study of Browning' s Saul 

And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of 

my own, 
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, 

and the women my sisters and lovers, 
And that a kelson of the creation is love. 
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields, 
And brown ants in the Httle wells beneath them. 
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, 

elder, mullein and poke- weed." 

In section XIX. we have an illustration of 
one of our most advanced views of nature. It 
reminds us of Wordsworth's thought and of his 
communion with the world around him. This 
sympathy between man and nature has been thus 
well set forth: **In those supreme moments 
when life touches its highest altitudes, as when 
David leaves the presence of Saul, nature seems 
to be on the verge of swift transformation into 
some spiritual medium and substance, so in- 
tensely does the soul project itself into all visible 
things, so alive and responsive are all visible 
things to the transcendent mood and revelation 
of the hour. In the long range of life, the 
material universe is seen to be plastic, and takes 
on the hue and form of thought, answering the 
soul as the body responds to the mind. Nature 
is vitalized by a power greater than itself; and 



A Study of Browning' s Saul 77 

through the majesty of its elemental forms — its 
seas and mountains and continents, as well as 
through its finer and more ethereal aspects — its 
flowers, its clouds, its sunrises and sunsets — 
God presses upon the spirit of man; and in the 
hours when that spirit aspires highest and acts 
noblest, this vast appearance of things material 
is touched and spiritualized." 

Saul is a type or a picture of our race with- 
out Christ; David is a type of the world's best 
helpers. What are David's qualifications for 
service? He states two of them in section XIV. 
*'In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy 
word was my word. ' ' 

I. His soul is the servant of God. 
n. God's word is his word. 
HI. He will work to the limit of his ability. 
IV. He loves supremely and longs to be a chan- 
nel for God's power. 

Such are the great qualities of ideal helpers. 
No man or woman can possess these character- 
istics and yet fail to be a blessing to humanity. 
No man can love supremely, as David did, and 
fail to come to a knowledge of the truth, to find 
God. 

It would be interesting to take from the Bible, 



78 A Study of Browning' s Stud 



from history, and from literature, many charac- 
ters that have been helpers or that have been 
helped, and observe the kind of help given and 
received, how each gained power or received 
assistance. Study in this way the reclaimed 
people of literature, the half-saved people, the 
people who have been touched but not lifted. 

We have experts in physics and in chemistry, 
who, by experiment in the laboratory, are con- 
stantly forming new combinations, separating 
into elements, bestowing upon men valuable and 
life-giving material products, and guarding them 
against disease and death. There is the science 
of the human mind and the human soul. 

Our great authors, especially the novelist and 
the writer of such a poem as '*Saul," are in- 
vestigators in the hidden forces of being, experi- 
menters in character and in action, and when 
read aright, open vast stores of spiritual wealth, 
whence we may gain experience, warning, and 
guidance; courage, faith, and hope; joy and 
inspiration. 



BROWNING'S CREED, AS SUGGESTED 
BY HIS POETRY 

I. God is Love, eternal, universal. 
II. Christ is the revelation of Love, divine 
because He is pure Love. 

III. Love is the divine principle of human life, 
giving rise to the crises and tragedies of life. 

IV. Personality is Power, Christ the supreme 
personality. 

, V. Dogma is rejected; divine truth is gained 
less through the head than through the heart. 

VI. Life is to be judged from the point of 
view of immortality. 

VII. Spiritual life requires struggle, progress. 

VIII. Faith in human impulse, in intuition. 

XL Acceptance of all the turmoil of hfe; 

activity involves opposition; harmony is to be 

evolved from discord, perfection from failure, good 

from evil. 

God as Love is manifest through love (goodness, 
morahty, the opposite of hate); through knowledge 
(truth, intelligence, the opposite of falsehood); 
through beauty (the opposite of ugliness). Life is 
evolution from hate, falsehood, and ugliness to love, 
knowledge, beauty. 

*'But in completed man begins anew 
A tendency to God." 



79 



JAN 9 1903 



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